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Reviews
JUMPTOWN: THE GOLDEN YEARS OF PORTLAND JAZZ, 1942–1957
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by Robert Dietsche
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Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, 2005.
Photographs, notes, bibliography, index. 242 pages. $24.95 paper. |
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| This lively history of the jazz scene in Portland's "Little Harlem" on Williams Avenue is not a model of fastidious scholarship, but it is a colorful read, chock-a-block with vital information one otherwise might never have discovered, and a welcome addition to the literature of regional history. Dietsche is a deejay who used to own Django Records, a popular used record store. Organized in nineteen chapters, one for each nightclub (or other venue), Jumptown includes a handy reference map and "Who's Who" of the Williams Avenue neighborhood, dozens of rich vintage photographs, a bibliography, a discography, endnotes, and a useful afterword by Portland jazz writer Lynn Darroch, who swiftly carries the story into the present. |
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Drawn largely from oral histories with musicians and characters on the scene (unfortunately not itemized in the bibliography), Jumptown has a more socially grounded feel than most jazz histories, which tend to concentrate on musical style and personality. In its pages, readers will meet Kenny Hing, who spent his hours away from Tigard High School combing through the bins at Madrona Records, then went on to play with Count Basie; Tommy Todd, the retiring pianist who wrote for Artie Shaw and was so confident about his own talents that "he wouldn't walk across the street to meet the President of the United States"; and George Lawson, "the great might have been" alto saxophonist who "was into bop before anyone" but "lost out due to his living habits" (p. 91). Readers will also get to know Pat Patterson, owner of the Dude Ranch and the first African American to play basketball for the University of Oregon; Tate Bay, "a wall-eyed, five-by-five man with a club foot" who was "the best dancer on the Avenue"; and Ed Slaughter, the "honorary mayor of Williams Avenue," whose jukebox at the Savoy Billiard Parlor educated a generation of Portland jazzers (p. 55). |
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Jumptown paints a three-dimensional picture of a racist, semi-segregated era when miscegenation was illegal, racially mixed couples were unwelcome, jitterbugging was banned at Jefferson High School because it was "too black," and touring African American musicians were barred from whites-only hotels (p. 153). |
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Dietsche has unearthed some historical gems, including the fact that early jazz drummer, pianist, and clarinetist Dink Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton's brother-in-law, moved to Portland in 1950, became a cook at Monte Ballou's Diamond Horseshoe Restaurant, then, succumbing to drink, was brutally beaten by thugs and buried in an unmarked grave. Jumptown is particularly strong in its recognition of women instrumentalists. Among them are the excellent pianist Lorraine Walsh Geller, who went from Washington High School to the Sweethearts of Rhythm to the famous Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California; bassist Bonnie Wetzel, who played with Tommy Dorsey; and trumpeter Norma Carson, who worked at the Café Society in New York. Jumptown fills in some gaps from my Jackson Street After Hours: The Roots of Jazz in Seattle, offering new information about Northwest-based musicians such as Clarence Williams, Phil Moore, Skeeter Evans, Rod Levitt, Roscoe Weathers, and Banjoski Adams. |
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All that said, Jumptown, the work of a dedicated amateur, has some real problems. Its unusual organizational framework — by nightclub — creates a frustrating, asynchronic kaleidoscope of names, places, and dates from which it is virtually impossible to construct a coherent narrative, not to mention evaluate who is important or even, in some cases, who is from Portland. |
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Accuracy is an issue all around. Dietsche asserts at one point that Mary Lou Williams "wrote Dick Wilson's most famous solo," when he must mean Williams wrote the tune Wilson soloed on (p. 113). The names of saxophonists Jabo Ward and Marshal Royal and trumpeter Neil Friel are misspelled, and at least one endnote refers to a page that has nothing to do with the subject at hand. (The notes are generally a mess.) A section of Jackson Street After Hours is paraphrased, but presented as a direct quote. There are also some intriguing omissions. Dietsche asserts, for example, that African Americans were forbidden from owning property in Portland, but he provides no details about this astonishing fact. In a section about band leader Jimmie Lunceford, the author fails to note Lunceford died in Seaside, Oregon. |
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Jumptown is written in a breathless, hyperbolic style, peppered with jazz-insider phrases such as "he wore the grooves gray" and "Confer could sight read in a blackout" (p. 78). This may annoy some readers, but the organizational problems will be trying for all. A final edit might have helped and also might have forced a little more analysis. Why, for example, did so many women instrumentalists thrive in Portland? Though the photographs are marvelous as documents, they are poorly reproduced (in spite of costly glossy stock), lack dates, and are embedded in a bland design. |
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For all its faults, this genuine labor of love is nevertheless a welcome, often enjoyable, and useful addition to the ongoing reconstruction of West Coast jazz history, which traditionally has been written from an East Coast point of view. |
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| PAUL DE BARROS
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| Seattle, Washington |
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